Discovery BoxNumbers 11:12 
Context11:12 Did I conceive this entire people? 1 Did I give birth to 2 them, that you should say to me, ‘Carry them in your arms, as a foster father 3 bears a nursing child,’ to the land which you swore to their fathers?
Numbers 18:30
Context18:30 “Therefore you will say to them, 4 ‘When you offer up 5 the best of it, then it will be credited to the Levites as the product of the threshing floor and as the product of the winepress.
Numbers 22:20
Context22:20 God came to Balaam that night, and said to him, “If the men have come to call you, get up and go with them; but the word that I will say to you, that you must do.”
Numbers 28:3
Context28:3 You will say to them, ‘This is the offering made by fire which you must offer to the Lord: two unblemished lambs one year old each day for a continual 6 burnt offering.
1 sn The questions Moses asks are rhetorical. He is actually affirming that they are not his people, that he did not produce them, but now is to support them. His point is that God produced this nation, but has put the burden of caring for their needs on him.
2 tn The verb means “to beget, give birth to.” The figurative image from procreation completes the parallel question, first the conceiving and second the giving birth to the nation.
3 tn The word אֹמֵן (’omen) is often translated “nurse,” but the form is a masculine form and would better be rendered as a “foster parent.” This does not work as well, though, with the יֹנֵק (yoneq), the “sucking child.” The two metaphors are simply designed to portray the duty of a parent to a child as a picture of Moses’ duty for the nation. The idea that it portrays God as a mother pushes it too far (see M. Noth, Numbers [OTL], 86-87).
4 tn The wording of this verse is confusing; it may be that it is addressed to the priests, telling them how to deal with the offerings of the Levites.
5 tn The clause begins with the infinitive construct with its preposition and suffixed subject serving to indicate the temporal clause.
6 sn The sacrifice was to be kept burning, but each morning the priests would have to clean the grill and put a new offering on the altar. So the idea of a continual burnt offering is more that of a regular offering.
